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Guides

Residential Schools: Resources

This Guide was created to recognize and honour the lost children and Survivors of residential schools, their families and communities.

Resources

Streaming Videos and Documentaries

This National Film Board film tells the story of residential schools through the eyes of two young children. View streaming video by clicking here

Sisters & Brothers 
A pounding critique of Canada's colonial history, this short film draws by artist Kent Monkman parallels between the annihilation of the bison in the 1890s and the devastation inflicted on the Indigenous population by the residential school system.  View online through NFB and search for title.

Second Stories - It Had to be Done

This short documentary explores the legacy of residential schools through the eyes of two extraordinary women who not only lived it, but who, as adults, made the surprising decision to return to the school that had affected their lives so profoundly. This intimate and moving film affirms their strength and dignity in standing up and making a difference on their own terms.  View online through NFB and search for title.

We Can't Make the Same Mistake Twice  The rights of First Nations children take centre stage in this monumental documentary. Following a historic court case filed by the Assembly of First Nations and the Child and Family Caring Society of Canada against the federal government, Alanis Obomsawin exposes generations of injustices endured by First Nations children living on reserves and their families.  View online through NFB and search for title.

Books and eBooks

Kent Monkman

Kent Monkman's The Scream features children being taken away to residential schools. https://www.kentmonkman.com/painting/2018/8/7/the-scoop

Never Forgotten

Names of 215 Children who Died or went Missing from Residential Schools

On this page you will see images of each of the Manitoba Residential Schools.  Select a school to view the names of the children who died at or went missing from that school.

Source: National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation

 

The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation

The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation is the permanent home for statements, documents, and other materials created during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. The NCTR website also provides resources for research on residential schools. Look through their Reports page to find the full text of many recent and historical reports.

RRC Library has print copies of the Canada's Residential Schools: The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission located in E 96.5 .T788 2015 as well as many of the other historical Reports.

v. 1.  The History. Part 1, Origins to 1939

v. 1.  The History. Part 2, 1939 to 2000

v. 2.  The Inuit and Northern Experience

v. 3.  The Métis Experience

v. 4.  The Missing Children and Unmarked Burials

v. 5.  The Legacy

v. 6.  Reconciliation

Exhibitions

The Aboriginal Healing Foundation and The National Archives of Canada launched a project which represented an attempt to tell the true and painful story of a national institution committed, not to the preservation of a people, but to their forced assimilation. Click here to view the website.

Aboriginal Healing Foundation

On March 31, 1998, the Aboriginal Healing Foundation (AHF) was set up with a $350 million fund from the Government of Canada, to be expended within an eleven-year time-frame. This grant has enabled the Foundation to fund community-based healing projects that address the legacy of physical abuse and sexual abuse in the residential school system, including intergenerational impacts.  Although AHF closed on September 30, 2014, their archived website has numerous valuable publications. The Library also has print copies of many of these resources. We especially recommend this title:

Historic Trauma and Aboriginal Healing describes the intergenerational transmission of historic trauma and examines the implications for healing in a contemporary Aboriginal context. The purpose of the study was to develop a comprehensive historical framework of Aboriginal trauma, beginning with contact in 1492 through to the 1950s, with a primary focus on the period immediately after contact.  Available online and in print E 98 .S67 W47 2004.

Apology

On Wednesday June 11, 2008, the Prime Minister of Canada, the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, made a Statement of Apology to former students of Indian Residential Schools, on behalf of the Government of Canada.

Read the full apology, or watch CBC's News in Review: Canada's Residential School Apology online.

Books about Survivors

Reference Technician

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Christina Janzen
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Contact:
Library - CM33
Notre Dame Campus
204-632-2301